Things to do with kids in Cardiff

Dominating the city from all points is the Principality Stadium, built as the Millennium Stadium for the 1999 Rugby World Cup. With its trademark retractable roof, and seating for 74,500 people, it has hosted sporting matches of every description - including the 2017 Champions League final - as well as an array of huge rock gigs and other spectaculars. The very worthwhile stadium tours take you into the press centre, dressing rooms, VIP areas, players’ tunnel and pitchside.

Secreted away between The Hayes and St Mary Street and High Street are some half a dozen renovated arcades, a series of Victorian and Edwardian galleries where you’ll find many alluring little independent shops and cafés. Particularly impressive are the High Street and Castle arcades, packed with great clothes shops, quirky gift stores, independent little coffeehouses. A few yards further down towards Central Station is the elegant Edwardian indoor market and further still the Royal and Morgan arcades, linking St Mary Street with the lower end of The Hayes. It’s all great inspiration for some souvenir shopping.

The political, geographical and historical heart of the city is Cardiff Castle. An intriguing hotchpotch, the fortress hides inside a vast walled yard corresponding roughly to the outline of the original fort built by the Romans. The neat Norman motte and keep look down onto the turrets and towers of the Castle Apartments, which date in part from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but were much extended in Tudor times, when residential needs began to overtake military priorities. Children will love exploring the castle, and a visit to the gift shop is a must!

Head to Cathays Park to find a huge rectangle of lawns and flowerbeds. They form the focus for the incredible structures which are found in the civic centre which date way back to the early twentieth century. It’s a wonderful spot for a stroll and a picnic with the family and one of the most fun things to do with children in Cardiff.

Central to the whole Bay project is the Cardiff Bay Barrage which was built across the Ely and Taff estuaries. Once a mudflat, it is now a freshwater lake. A stroll along here provides an insightful look into the area’s lock gates and sluices. You’ll also find a fantastic kids’ play area and skate park. If you and the family have the energy, you could have a go at the 6.2-mile Bay Trail, a circular path for walkers and cyclists (if your kids are up for it!) that trickles around the bay and across to Penarth. Making the most of the outdoors in one of the best things to do in Cardiff with kids.

Rising mysteriously out of a steep wooded hillside above the village of Tongwynlais is Castell Coch, a ruined thirteenth-century fortress rebuilt into a fantasy castle in the late 1870s by William Burges for the third Marquess of Bute. With its working portcullis and drawbridge, Castell Coch is pure medieval fantasy, and shares many similarities with Cardiff Castle, notably the lavish decor, culled from religious and moral fables. An excellent audio guide leads you around, beginning in the banqueting hall, with its striking painted timber ceiling and Burges-designed furnishings. From here you enter the octagonal drawing room, its walls and domed ceiling decorated with murals. Remember to see Lord Bute’s bedroom, with a typically ostentatious bronze-plated bed, though this is relatively staid compared to Lady Bute’s bedroom, incorporating a mirrored, double-dome ceiling around which 28 panels depict frolicking monkeys. Kids will love trying to spot all 28 of the exploring creatures!